Attraction and Relationships

I. The Need To Belong

A. Affiliation Need: a motivation to reach out and bond withother people in relationships. We actively select people thatwill provide positive and ongoing interactions.

B. Ostracism: exclusion, by general consent, from socialacceptance, privileges, friendship, etc.

II. Attraction

I. Proximity: we are more likely to developrelationships with people who live near us andbecome familiar to us than people who live far awayor do not become familiar to us.

A.Mere Exposure Effect: the more often we see someone orsomething new, the more likely we are to start to like thatperson or thing.

The Man in The Big Black Bag!

A female stranger attends a class again & again & again.

II. Similarity

A. Do Opposites Attract?

B. Complementarity: when two people in a relationship valuethe same thing, but one struggles to exhibit behavior consistentwith what he or she values. The person that struggles benefitsfrom the other person who does not struggle.

C. Personality Traits: mental, emotional, temperamental,and behavioral traits, or attributes.

D. The Big Five Personality Traits…

1) Neuroticism: the tendency to experience emotionalinstability: anxiety, hostility, depression, self-consciousness,impulsiveness, and vulnerability very easily.

2) Extraversion: the tendency to seek stimulation andenjoy the company of other people.

3) Agreeableness: the tendency to be trusting andcompassionate rather than distrustful of and antagonistictowards others.

4) Conscientiousness: the tendency to show self-discipline,to be reliable, and to strive for competence and achievement. 5) Openness to Experience: the tendency to enjoy newexperiences and new ideas.

III. Liking Those Who Like Us

A. Self-Esteem and Liking

B. Disliking then Liking

C. Association and Liking

IV. Physical Attractiveness

A. Attractiveness and Dating

B. The Matching Phenomenon: the tendency for men andwomen to choose as partners those who are a “good match”in attractiveness and other traits.

C. The Physical-Attractiveness Stereotype: we perceiveattractive people to be healthier, happier, more sensitive, moresuccessful, and more socially skilled. What is beautiful is good.

D. Attractiveness and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

E. Who is Attractive?

1) Differences across time and cultures…

2) Similarities across time and cultures…High attractiveness ratings that are associated

withfemale faces:

Large eyes, Small nose, Small chin, Prominent cheekbones,

Narrow cheeks, High eyebrows, Big smile

High attractiveness ratings that are associated with

male faces:Large eyes, Prominent cheekbones, Large chin, Big smile

Dilated Pupils… The Big Giveaway!

Symmetry

3) The Misattribution of Arousal

4) Social Comparison

After seeing more attractive members of the oppositesex, we tend to judge less attractive members of theopposite sex to be even less attractive.

After seeing more attractive members of the same sex,we tend to judge ourselves to be even less attractivemembers of our sex than if we hadn’t been exposed tomore attractive members of our sex.

5) The Attractiveness of Those We Love

III. Sex

A. Freud and Personality

1) Id: the part that is comprised of all of our biological drivesthat demand immediate gratification.

2) Ego: the rational, negotiating, and decision-makingcomponent of the personality.

3) Superego: the internalized values and rules we receivefrom our parents and society.

B. Freud and Relationship Defense Mechanisms

1) Fantasy: gratifying frustrated desires in imaginaryachievements (“daydreaming” is a common form).

2) Identification: increasing feelings of worth by identifyingself with another person or institution, often of illustriousstanding.

3) Isolation: cutting off emotional charge from hurtfulsituations.

4) Humor: the comical expression of negative ideas andfeelings that gives pleasure to others. The thoughts retain aportion of their innate distress, but they are “skirted round”by witticism.

C. Sexual Identity: achieved by seeing oneself as a sexualbeing, recognizing one's sexual orientation, coming to termswith sexual desires, and forming romantic or sexual attachments.

D. Sexual Orientation: the focus of consistent sexual, romantic,and affectionate interest, either heterosexual, homosexual, orbisexual.

E. Sexual Imagery

F. Sexual Fantasizing

G. Sexual Variety

Differences betweenmen and women

regarding preferencesfor varioussexual acts.

Desired Number of Sexual PartnersOver the Courseof One’s Lifetime

H. Evolutionary Sexology: men are primarily attracted towomen’s appearance; women are primarily attracted to men’sresources; because these foster reproductive success.

I. Sexual Attitudes

1) Reproductive: attitude concerning sex that sex is permissible only for reproductive purposes within marriage.

2) Traditional: attitude concerning sex that sex is permissible only within marriage.

3) Relational: attitude concerning sex that sex should be accompanied by love or affection, but not necessarily marriage.

4) Recreational: attitude concerning sex that whatever feels good and doesn’t hurt anyone is fine.

Nymphomania: abnormally excessive and uncontrollable sexual desire inwomen.

Satyriasis: abnormally excessive and uncontrollable sexual desire in men.

IV. Love

A. Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

1) Intimacy: the emotional element of love, involvingself-disclosure, which leads to connection, warmth and trust.

2) Passion: the motivational element of love, based on innerdrives that translate physiological arousal into sexual desire.

3) Commitment: the cognitive element of love, the decisionto love and stay with the beloved.

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

B. Sternberg’s Seven Forms of Love

0) Non-Love: the absence of all three of Sternberg'scomponents of love.

1) Liking: true friendships in which a person feels a bond,a warmth, and a closeness with another but not intensepassion or long-term commitment.

Women tend to have fewer friends than do men, but are very close with those friends.

Men tend to have more friends than do women, but are less

intimate with those friends.

2) Infatuation: pure passion; romantic relationships oftenstart out as infatuation and become romantic love as intimacydevelops over time.

3) Empty Love: characterized by commitment without intimacy or passion; sometimes a stronger love deterioratesinto empty love.

4) Fatuous Love: (a.k.a. dumb love) can be exemplified by a whirlwind courtship and marriage in which a commitment is motivated largely by passion without the stabilizing influence of intimacy.

5) Romantic (Passionate) Love: an intense longing for aperson fueled by intimate feelings and accompanied byphysiological arousal; when our love is reciprocated, we feelgreat fulfillment and ecstasy, but when it is not, we feelsadness and despair.

6) Companionate Love: an intimate, non-passionate type oflove that we feel when we care deeply for a person; it isstronger than friendship because of the element of long-termcommitment.

7) Consummate Love: is the complete form of love,representing an ideal relationship toward which people strive(a.k.a. the perfect couple).

Romantic (Passionate) Lovebetween partners in arrangedor love marriages in India.

C. What We’re Looking For in a Long-Term LovingRelationship

U.S. men and women desire the same top 5characteristics in a marriage partner.

1) Mutual Attraction (Love)2) Emotional Stability and

Maturity3) Dependable Character4) Pleasing Disposition5) Education and Intelligence

A couple of interesting differences in rankings…

Ambition and Industriousness: Men = 11; Women = 6

Good Financial Prospects: Men = 16; Women = 11Good Looks: Men = 7; Women = 13

D. Positive Illusions in Romantic Relationships

V. What Enables Close Relationships?

A. Attachment

Depending on our level of self-esteem and interpersonaltrust, we may develop one of four possible attachmentstyles…

1) Secure Attachment Style: involves high self-esteem andhigh interpersonal trust. This style is the most desirable andleads to very positive outcomes, including enduring andrewarding relationships throughout life.

2) Fearful-Avoidant Attachment Style: involves lowself-esteem and low interpersonal trust. This is the“least adaptive” style in that relationships are either avoidedor are unhappy.

3) Preoccupied Attachment Style: involves low self-esteemand high interpersonal trust. This style leads to a very strongmotive to establish relationships coupled with a fear ofrejection.

4) Dismissive Attachment Style: involves high self-esteemand low interpersonal trust. This is a conflicted style in thatan individual feels deserving of a good relationship, but issuspicious of possible partners.

B. Self-Disclosure: revealing important information aboutoneself to another.

1) Disclosure Reciprocity: the tendency for one person’sintimacy or self-disclosure to match that of a conversationalpartner.

C. Online Relationships… The Costs and the Benefits

1) Friends

2) Lovers

Love: An overlapping of selves.You become part of me and

I become part of you.

D. Exchange/Equity Relationships: we seek relationships withpeople with whom we feel we can make equitable transactionsof goods and services and that the rewards and costsexperienced are roughly equal.

3) Comparison Level: people’s expectations about the level of rewardsand punishments they are likely to receive in a particular relationship.

4) Comparison Level for Alternatives: people’s expectations about thelevel of rewards and punishments they would receive in an alternativerelationship.

E. Communal Relationships: relationships in which people’sprimary concern is being responsive to the other person’s needs.

1) Overbenefited: getting a lot of rewards, incurring few costs, having todevote little time or energy to the relationship.

2) Underbenefited: getting few rewards, incurring a lot of costs, having todevote a lot of time and energy to the relationship.

F. Investment Model: the theory that people’s commitment to arelationship depends not only on their satisfaction with therelationship in terms of rewards, costs, and comparison levelsbut also on how much they have invested in the relationship thatwould be lost by leaving it.

In sum, to predict whether people will stay in an intimaterelationship, we need to know:

1) How satisfied they are with the relationship.

2) What they think of the alternatives.

3) How great is their investment in the relationship.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

VI. When Relationships End

A. Jealousy

1) Several investigators have suggested that jealousy is rooted in low self-esteem or insecurities about self-worth.

2) Males seem less likely to admit they feel jealous but are more likely to express anger with themselves or toward the rival.

3) Females are more likely to react with depression and with attempts to make themselves more attractive to the partner.

B. Infidelity

1) Males exhibit more distress to sexual than to emotional infidelity,while females exhibit more distress to emotional rather than tosexual infidelity.

C. People who are moderately happy or unhappy in theirmarriages are significantly less happy in their lives thanthose who are very happy in their marriages.

D. Responses to Relationship Distress

Destructive Responses…

1) Exit (active): end the relationship.

2) Neglect (passive): ignore the partner and allow therelationship to deteriorate.

Constructive Responses…

1) Voice (active): take active steps to improverelationship.

2) Loyalty (passive): wait for conditions to improve.